THE HOME OF SOCIAL TV

Social TV ads bringing in millions, says TVGuide.com

Who says there’s no money in social TV? TVGuide.com says it’s grossing millions of dollars ad sales across its many social TV products: Watchlists (earlier story), TV Check-ins, Social Power Ranking (story), Watch & Share, and now a new sponsored home page experience called Social Spotlight:

The new home page module highlights the ION Television show, Flashpoint, and as you can see, it goes far beyond a standard display ad with an embedded promotional video, a native “like” button for ION Television’s Facebook page, a “add to Watchlist” button, a “I’ll Watch” button that triggers social sharing, a few news stories associated with the show and a call-out to use the #Flashpoint hashtag. Whew!

In fact, this is the most “social” of any online ad I’ve ever seen.

“Both users and advertisers have embraced social TV on our site, and we’re happy to share the milestone of our 50th social sponsorship this year with ION,” said Christy Tanner, Executive Vice President and General Manager, TV Guide Digital. “We found a growing curiosity in social ad integrations among customers last year, so we built our social ad innovations ahead of the curve to meet the demand we saw coming. Marketers want to extend the value of their advertising dollars by connecting and engaging with TVGuide.com’s audience of social influencers.”

While many companies are building social TV products like crazy, TVGuide is monetizing them at a surprising scale, attractors programmers and marketers who are eager to drive social buzz for their shows by engaging social influencers who love to talk about TV.

A social report card on Fall TV’s first month

We’ve almost arrived at fall sweeps, the terrifying period when creators, writers, director, producers and marketers pray that their show lives to see another day. Networked Insights, a data company who recently got a large round of funding, published a fall TV report card analyzing how the networks are performing. Here are some key findings:

From the networks:

• CBS is struggling with creating a unique identity for each of their programming, and their dramas have the lowest volume of conversation out of all the new dramas. At the same time though, they just broke TV ratings history with 20 of their shows in the top 30 this fall season.
• NBC has some aces with the first “diamond in the rough” (the Maria Bello-driven Prime Suspect) and the strongest comedy in social conversations across all the networks (Up All Night)

From the shows:

• The Playboy Club, NBC: NBC already has a DOA show
• Charlie’s Angels, ABC: The reboot flopped pretty heavily despite high viewer anticipation (this show has one of the highest number of Facebook fans); this is a case where poorly created content cannot sustain viewer interests

Here’s the full report. (Click the full-screen icon to read:)

Miso ties up with AT&T for synchronized viewing

Last month the social TV app company Miso announced a partnership with DirecTV so viewers could participate on Miso’s app in sync with TV shows — both live and recorded. Now Miso has announced another partner, AT&T U-verse.

“All you have to do is open up Miso, and as an AT&T U-verse enabled app, you simply select the receiver you want to connect to and it will immediately show what’s playing on your U-verse receiver,” explains Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi. “As you flip through channels, Miso changes with it to display what’s on. Users don’t have to search anymore to check-in, just tap and share.”

You can also click “watch it” on your Miso app, and the TV receiver will automatically search for the program. Think of it as an in-sync social TV guide that allows you to connect with other people watching the same shows. “These features are just the very beginning of how we are making it easier to share what you watch and get more from your TV experience,” Niyogi says.

Last month, GetGlue teamed up with DirecTV to allow check-ins via your TV remote control or DirecTV iPad app (demo video above.) DirecTV subscribers can also see the latest GetGlue check-ins from their friends on TV.

Amazon inks licensing deal with Viacom to add streaming TV shows

Disney, Univision in talks on English-language cable news channel

Advertisers' free ride may end on Facebook soon

Yap.tv to roll out its first custom app for USA Network

The social TV company Yap.tv is getting into the custom app business. Today it announced it will launch a custom second-screen app (iPad & iPhone) for USA Networks in November.

The custom app is designed to blend the best of both worlds: the social TV initiatives already underway at USA — which include its online second-screen experience “Character Chatter” — and a dynamic program guide and real-time social chat via Yap.tv. “[It] gives our fans an innovative platform for personalizing their interaction and engaging with content in ways that allow us to continually evolve our social TV experience, always staying a step ahead for our fans,” said Jesse Redniss, VP of Digital for USA Network.

Staying a step ahead in this rapidly-evolving space is always a challenge — especially on the mobile front — and Yap.TV is positioning itself as an out-of-the-box, white-label solution. “The yap.TV platform is currently being offered to select network partners, who will benefit from fast time-to-market and an extensive roadmap of innovations to come,” the press release explains.

There are other social TV startups with white-label solutions who also elbowing for attention: Loyalize, for example, just announced a partnership with Spike TV last month. And there’s Umami, which landed a fresh round of funding in August.

Media companies worst at answering Facebook questions

Wow, here’s an eye-opening study by eConsultancy, which looked at the response rate across different industries to questions posed on their company Facebook pages:

Ouch. Media companies respond about 1% of the time, while the Telecom industry — the best in the study — answers just north of 25% of the questions. “If you want to be social and enter social media, then be social and talk to your fans, have them ask questions, do customer care there if necessary,” writes eConsultancy.

As you can see by the graph, there appears to be a positive correlation between volume (the proxy here is “page size”) and response rate, and media companies typically have a high volume of questions. It would be interesting to know what constitutes a question on a media organization’s page as compared to a customer service question to an airline (which raises the question, aren’t they both customers anyways?) But I think it’s safe to say that many of us are guilty of not using Facebook and Twitter to its fullest potential as a listening device to deepen relationships with our customers. (Via RRW)

Follow NBC’s ‘Grimm’ on Twitter for early premiere

NBC’s new drama “Grimm” will premiere on October 28th, but fans who follow the show’s Twitter account now can watch it two weeks early. The network is starting to direct-message followers of @NBCGrimm with a code to unlock the premiere video clip on NBC.com.

This approach to exclusive content is becoming a more common occurrence on Facebook (“like gate”), but this is the first time we’ve seen this approach on Twitter for a TV show (“follow gate?”). And it’s a safe bet we’ll see more of this in months to come. After all, it’s a great way to reward your most loyal fans while building a social following.

By the way, “follow gating” has some similarities to “flock to unlock” that the Travel Channel experimented with earlier this year: if viewers send out a certain threshold of hashtagged tweets during a broadcast, it unlocks new content.

Hulu not selling to pursue ‘even greater success’

After shopping itself around, Hulu has decided to stay put. Statement:

”Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”

The questions now: 1) Will CEO Jason Kilar stay? 2) How much freedom will Hulu (owned by News Corp., Comcast/NBCU and Disney) continue to have to be a disruptive, consumer-first product? Stay tuned…

L.A. Dodgers push second screen with ‘Social September’

Credit: LA Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers just wrapped up what may be one of the more ambitious social media projects by a professional sports team in 2011. Social September was a full month of events and promotions geared toward giving back to the team’s fan base via social media.

“Social September was a month-long initiative designed to engage our fans online, in-stadium and at home,” said Joe Jareck, the Dodgers assistant director of public relations, in an e-mail exchange with Lost Remote.

That meant the promotion spanned TV, the web, radio and Dodger Stadium.

The plan came together earlier this season, when it became apparent that a playoff run was not in the cards for the team.

“We knew that September home games would be devoid of a pennant race and really wanted to give something back to our loyal fans that follow so closely via social media, particularly the ones at the stadium and watching on TV,” Jareck said. “All season long, we’re always trying to think of ways to enhance our fan experience and that’s not just limited to the ballpark.”

Among the ways the Dodgers engaged their fans:

• During a Sept. 1-8 road trip, fans were able to ask questions through the Dodgers’ Twitter account and have them answered during broadcasts.
• On multiple dates, fans were able to vote, via Facebook poll, for the songs that would play when Dodger players came to the plate.
• Tweets that included the #SocialSept hashtag were featured on the big screen at Dodger Stadium during the Sept. 12-22 homestand.
• Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw took over @Dodgers and guest tweeted one day.
• Twitter fans had chances to win prizes, such as an on-field introduction before a game, a game of catch on the field during the offseason, announcing the start of a ballgame and a lunch with Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda.
• Some fans had Dodger PA Announcer Eric Smith record their outgoing voicemail messages.
• Pitcher Javy Guerra helped the team engage its Latino and bilingual fan base by giving away tickets to a special section during one of September’s home games.

Social September winner Emma Amaya announces “It’s Time for Dodger Baseball!” at the start of the game. Credit: Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers.

The result, from the team’s perspective, was a huge success. Fans from 19 different countries showed up in one form or another for the first day of Social September and the Dodgers’ social accounts saw steady growth throughout the month.

“On the statistical side, we gained over 21,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook. The hashtag #SocialSept was used in more than 11,000 tweets and we were one of the only non-contending teams to actually gain steam in September as our club had the second most new Twitter followers during the month (among the 18 non-contending teams),” Jareck said.

Jareck added, though, that the Dodgers didn’t go fishing for new Facebook and Twitter fans when they set out to create Social September. Rather, the Dodgers wanted to offer multiple platforms where fans could engage.

“The goal … really was to just give our fans more voice … another way to follow the Dodgers closely and be rewarded for it,” Jareck said. “The goals of additional likes on Facebook or more followers on Twitter were secondary.”

When we brought up the idea of a repeat of Social September, Jareck said that wasn’t exactly in the cards — “hopefully, next September we are wrapping up a division title and we can let that be our sole focus,” he said — but that elements of the promotion could easily pop up throughout the regular season.

“I think it’s safe to say that at some point next season or perhaps even in Spring Training, we will look to do something similar for our True Blue fans,” he said. “As I’m writing this, we’re having an extended brainstorm session about how cool it would be to do something for Spring Training and the excitement it could build leading Opening Day. [...] The Dodger brand is strong and our fans are some of the most loyal in the game. We definitely need to continue doing more and more with social media. It’s absolutely a part of the Dodger fan experience.”

What TV viewers are doing on their tablets, smartphones

Nielsen released a new study today that drills down on how tablet and smartphone users engage with their devices while watching TV. Roughly 40% of tablet and smartphone owners are using their devices daily while watching TV — that number jumps to 70% for tablet users “several times a week.” These are big numbers that validate the incredible potential of second-screen applications. Here’s the breakdown:

Here’s where it gets fascinating. The graph below explains what tablet and smartphone users are doing while they watch TV. As you may have suspected, the majority of activity is unrelated to the TV program at hand — viewers are checking email and looking up other stuff online, equally during the program and commercial breaks. After all, we’re a nation of multi-taskers:

The next most popular activity is visiting a social networking site/app — substantially more popular than looking up websites with “info related to the TV program.” Unfortunately, the study doesn’t break down if people are 1) participating or just listening to social conversations and 2) if the conversations are related to the TV program at hand. But it’s probably safe to say that more viewers are more inclined to talk about (or listen to) conversations about a TV show than proactively look up expanded content about it.

On the advertising end, 19 percent of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information and 13 percent searched for coupons or deals while the television was on. That’s a very strong number which helps balance the concern about all the unrelated tablet/phone activity during commercial breaks.

The goal of many second-screen apps, of course, is to bring this all together: social conversations, expanded content and interactive (even synchronized) advertising. Compelling second-screen experiences, in theory, will move the needle more in the “related” direction, making TV viewers more engaged overall. Stay tuned for a flurry of innovation here.

Earlier: Does social media drive TV ratings? Yes, finds study

How Synacor is helping MSOs provide TV Everywhere

HBO Go is now becoming a powerful tool for Time Warner to both hold onto existing customers and attract new ones. Even Roku announced they’d be offering an HBO Go Channel. Comcast’s Xfinity offers streaming content and Turner even recently launched a huge ad campaign to “educate viewers,” about Turner Entertainment’s offerings for TNT and TBS, according to President of Tuner Entertainment Steve Koonin.  The MSOs and the content providers that are tied into contracts with them (like HBO) seem to be gaining traction into holding onto their billion dollar business.

How have they been able to do this? By forcing consumers to authenticate online with a username and password that the MSOs will only give out if you’re a paying subscriber. Synacor’s single-sign on TV Everywhere technology has been allowing the MSOs and content providers to offer content on more devices. Whether authenticating via an MSO or in some future TV-utopia where you don’t need a cable contract to access TV Everywhere, Synacor’s technology (which reaches 25 million high-speed Internet subscribers worldwide) seems to be easing the minds of the execs who own the content and pushing it everywhere (they work with HBO, Turner’s six channels, EPIX and authenticate on Roku’s).

Lost Remote spoke with Jim Brandt, Synacor’s Director of Director, TV/Video/Convergence.

Lost Remote: What does Synacor prodvide?

Jim Brandt: We’re an IT services provider for ITV and cable providers. We power the pages that users see and log in to. We provide various other types of premium services, including virus protection.

LR: What was the first big project you worked on for TV Everywhere?

JB: For the last Winter Olympics we put up authentication for 14 different cable providers.

LR: Why is the authentication process important?

JB: Online is a huge way [for providers] to extent their reach and authentication bridges that gap. You have a huge group of people paying, let’s figure a way to verify that and give them a way to do that. The other part we provide, the nature of that federation, the SAML [Secure Assertion Markup Language] technology that allows you to pass credentials.

LR: How do you prevent multiple users from logging in?

JB: There’s a balance between security and ease of use. Some of the techniques are various kinds of limits on the account. Stream limits – you can have a couple of people from a household, but when you get over 5 current streams.

LR: What challenges are faced with providers want to use social tools?

JB: One of the challenges TV Everywhere has with social media, there are so many cable providers. If I find a cool link, you may not have the same provider.  A challenge is smoothing over that sharing, even though your provider’s different. With commenting, they generally have been a little bit hesitant, so there’s nothing objectionable, to keep things family friendly.

LR: How will Synacor evolve as a business?

JB: As long as we stay up-to-date and current on ways people can enjoy content, there will always be premium content to put behind payment mechanism, whatever the form of account you have.

Condé Nast’s launches Entertainment division for original television, film and digital content

Condé Nast has announced that they’d be launching an Entertainment Division with Dawn Ostroff, the former head of the CW Network (responsible for launching Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries and more) as the leader.

In this newly created role, Ms. Ostroff will be responsible for the development, creation, production and distribution of original television, film and digital initiatives based on Condé Nast’s diverse and renowned portfolio of brands.  Her appointment is effective immediately.

What’s unclear is where will their focus be with their new entertainment initiatives. Will they compete with other production shops to make content for TV, will they try to find ways to leverage their magazine (print and digital) for video content, or will they try to revolutionize what it means to run a magazine in the digital age by infusing television and film into their brands. My guess is all the above.

Does social media drive TV ratings? Yes, finds study

It’s one of the most-asked questions around social TV: social media is great, but does it drive ratings? Yes, according to a new study by NM Incite, a Nielsen company, which breaks down the numbers by audience demographic and a show’s seasonal cycle (premiere, midseason or finale).

The study found a “statistically significant” connection (proof!) between social buzz and TV ratings among all age groups, “with the strongest correlation among younger demos (people ages 12-17 and 18-34), and a slightly stronger overall correlation for women compared to men.” This chart drills down on the 18-34 year-old demographic:

For example, four weeks prior to a show’s premiere, a nine percent increase in buzz volume correlates to a one percent increase in ratings. “At the genre level, 18-34 year-old females showed significant buzz-to-ratings relationships for reality programs (competition and non-competition), comedies and dramas, while men of the same age saw strong correlations for competition realities and dramas,” the study found.

Interestingly, the study found that adults tend to drive the most conversation around TV: 25 to 49 year-olds make up 59% of the people chatting about TV shows (not just Twitter, but blogs and boards, as well). Add another 24% for people 50 and older!

Meanwhile, NM Incite also looked at when people tended to talk about TV the most. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday showed the largest spikes, which roughly match the biggest nights on television. During the year, premieres (September and January) and finales (April and May) drive the most conversation.

As for topics, you can see the influence of reality shows with “winning” (not #winning), “voting” and “judging.” The other topics shouldn’t really surprise you (at least not me.) The data was presented at Nielen’s “TV Viewers Get Social” presentation at AdWeek last week.

Inside look at ABC’s massive Pan-Am launch

One of the most hyped-up shows of the fall is ABC’s Pan-Am, the hour-long 1960s drama about the lives of the stewardesses and pilots who once made travelling on a plane similar to the way the rich wined and dined on cross-atlantic ships like the Titanic.

Since Comic-Con in July, excitement around the show’s premier proved to be another major opportunity for a television company to leverage social as part of a massive marketing campaign that got both older generations who remembered when Pan-Am existed, to Mad Men-loving, travel hungry younger demos psyched about the new world they were about to enter. Lost Remote spoke with Executive Vice President, Marketing, ABC Entertainment Group Marla Provencio about the thinking, planning and execution that went into the campaign.

Lost Remote: What were the different social components that went into the Pan-Am marketing mix?

Marla Provencio: Our strategy started at Comic-Con. We decided to put a flight simulator in the convention center. We’d have a certain amount of people go into the plane every hour on the hour. We gave away nostalgic Pan-Am bags. All these people started to carry the Pan-Am bags. We had walking billboards across San Diego.

We continued to play into excitement and glamour. Travel was such a wonderful and stylish experience. Our Facebook page, which is probably most important for any show – we have 230,000 fans. Even on the day of the premier we were the number one show on Television according to Trendrr.

We decided to launch a Pan Am Twitter powered flight, for fans to talk about Pan-Am and win things while they did. The bag became a really popular item to win. For the Twitter powered flight – so they could feel like they were moving the plane, every engagement had an incentive, the bag or an exclusive video.

We were at fashion week, we had a party with Lisa Perry. We had a bus with bus stops. We took out the glass and put in the dress and the fashion bag, as a fashion display. We got a lot of press coverage for the fashion display.

We created a Facebook app, called the Pan-Am flight crew. It encouraged fans to get post-cards and unlock content. Giving them themes and moments to let people emerge in the show.

Lost Remote: What was the thinking behind the partnership with Jetsetter?

MP: Our partnership with Gilt Group and Jetsetter, was a reflection of the style and what the show emulates. That’s always been our mantra, we want the tactics to fill organic, rash and very unexpected and inclusive. We don’t want to speak like we’re promoting. We want to make them feel like they’re part of something. That’s always been the intent.

Lost Remote: How will ABC keep up momentum?

MP: We will look at the pages and see what is and isn’t working. We’ll start to break out and get more involved with the characters. ABC.com is producing webisodes and about real Pan-Am stewardists. We have a producer who was a Pan-Am flight attendant. Her and her circle of friends is a big group of influencers.

Expanding on the glamour and fashion, the relationships on the show and also the locale, the places that they go to. Using the destinations they travel to, to create something people want to talk about.

Lost Remote: Was more invested in traditional or online?

MP: Certain shows just scream out for an online presence. For Pan-Am- it was 70%-30% traditional vs. online. Paid tactics are very much for awareness, by the time you do online, you’re hoping they aware. By the time the viral buzz is going on (like what we did at Comic-Con), chatter started to happen. We revisited our online tactics to see if it was supporting what dialogue was going on.

Lost Remote: Have you tried to correlate ratings with online?

MP: I think we’re getting closer. Nielsen is delving more into arena, figuring out how to measure it and at some point they’ll get there. Was it a television on-air promo, was it print, or was it talking about it on Facebook that caused them to tune-in? Because of that whole media mix, you have surrounded your viewer, that if it’s creative enough an idea then they will come to it. How they get there is always a learning experience.

Lost Remote: What’s your experience been with GetGlue?

MP: GetGlue has been a part of many campaigns and is extremely useful. We use it for 90% of our [media campaigns].

Lost Remote: Is GetGlue charging for stickers now?

MP: Yes, they are.

Lost Remote: What has your biggest success been?

MR: The whole fashion idea – having that bag. When people attach to something of interest they get excited. On-air we used a #hashtag with a contest for the bags. It’s generating a lot of interest. People couldn’t get away from it.

Pan-Am has such a great brand. People knew about it. Once they knew it they wanted to know more. People remebered Pan-Am fondly,what it meant for travel, what the stewardesses were like. An exciting and wonderful time. It helped us, no pun intended, get off the ground.

Roku rolls out $49 player, adds HBO Go

“Our goal is a Roku in every home,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood, and today the company announced a stylish low-cost player called Roku LT that will retail for $49 a pop. The new Roku will have Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora and HBO Go.

“We expect the Roku LT will be everyone’s favorite Holiday device,” Wood says, and we expect they’ll sell a big batch of the mini-devices.

HBO Go is a new addition to the Roku family, allowing viewers to watch more than 1,400 titles right on their TV sets. Just like HBO Go online and mobile devices, you’ll need to be an authenticated HBO subscriber via a cable or satellite service. This rounds out Roku’s service to provide a rather healthy amount of plug-and-play on-demand content for TVs everywhere, even for lower-tech households.

Inside look at Discovery’s first live co-viewing event

Discovery premiered “Penn & Teller Tell A Lie” on Wednesday night, and the show (hosted by the aforementioned iconic magicians and entertainers) challenges viewers to identify which of the stories featured is true and which is a lie. In honor of the premier, Discovery has updated their successful apps (available for iPad, iPhone and web app) for the first live, interactive, on-air integration. 

Viewers cast their votes during the show, with results presented live during the premiere; they also get bonus content to complement live tune-in. As with Shark Week Live (their first co-viewing experience), the app is designed for live viewing and is also an editorial part of the show.

Lost Remote interviewed Discovery Communications VP of Digital Media Miguel Monteverde about the integration.

Lost Remote: What partners have you used for this launch? For the voting?

Miguel Monteverde: Our Guess the Lie co-viewing experience, including voting, is being produced by our Digital Media team in conjunction with LiveHive, and integrated into our Discovery Channel HD iPad App working with Bottle Rocket Apps.

LR: Why is a show about lying great for social media?

MM: Penn & Teller Tell A Lie is all about provoking our audience, getting them to question what’s true. Each of the stories presented is quirky and gets viewers thinking and talking. Who wouldn’t want to know if you can melt steel with bacon?

LR: What are your goals with the co-viewing app?

MM: Our primary goals are to encourage live viewership for this new series and to offer our fans an enjoyable, multiplatform experience – moving from passive to participatory and having our audience engage with the series on an individual and group level.

Breaking: Analysis of Twitter media’s fall TV picks

About an hour ago, @TwitterMedia,  tweeted a “Fall TV (staff picks)” who to follow list.  The list, which they later tweeted “is not in any order,” lists 198 handles, a combination of official show accounts, writers, producers and actors.

Most of the accounts wear the coveted blue and white verification symbol, but not all. This list is something to note for a number of reasons. The fact that Twitter, as a company continues to increase their editorially-created lists might mean that they might take more of an active role in telling people who you should follow in different verticals. Maybe they’ll even start to hire a new-age kind of journalists eventually. Most likely this list is meant to get the TV world excited about Twitter and encourage them to continue to put tweets on air and buy promoted trends and accounts for big TV events.

Either way, it’s interesting to see who they picked. We took a quick tally and among the top 5 networks and CBS has the most shows (20) listed.

Exclusive: How a tweet gets on TV by Mass Relevance

We’ve written about Mass Relevance around NBC’s The Voice, the BET Awards and they’ve even inked a cross-brand partnership with MTV. Mass Relevance CEO Sam Decker has share a detailed infographic with Lost Remote detailing how “the best tweets get from Twitter to TV”. “We created this because there’s a lot of confusion and fear of how this works,” explained Decker. “We often have to do this discussion with TV execs to get the point across of how it works to get clean content and publish it to TV.” Here’s the infographic followed by a detailed explanation and interview with Decker.

(Click for larger view)

Lost Remote: Can you give us a summary of the graphic?
Sam Decker: This is a behind-the-scenes flow of how tweets get on TV, which has been done for shows such as NBC The Voice, CNN, MSNBC, and many awards shows by Mass Relevance. To get Tweets on TV requires Mass Relevance technology of real-time sourcing, rules, moderation and API or hosted visualization that convert into TV broadcast. Mass Relevance has worked with graphics systems from Avid, Ross, Chyron, Miranda, Orad and Harris. Or they have hosted web-based visualizations that convert to TV through CSI Scan Do or Folsom.

LR: Why did you create this graphic?
SD: We found ourselves in conversations with stakeholders from different backgrounds, including producers, network executives, digital teams, and graphics teams. Each of them wondered ‘how it worked’. This graphic provides an overview that allows us to walk anyone through the execution possibilities and help reduce anxiety that we can work with almost any set up. This could be for different kind of on-air visualizations, such as counters, lower third tweet, streams, and data visualizations. There’s a separate conversation (and graphic coming) for the different creative executions possible for TV and events depending on the type of show and editorial objective.

LR: How do you use it with potential clients?
SD: I think this is something we can use to walk the steps through with any function, but moreover, something the ‘digital champions’ can use with executives and technical colleagues to show the degree of flexibility possible. Hopefully this will open up or accelerate opportunities to integrate social content into TV broadcasts, which could be for a live TV show or layering live social content over taped shows.

LR: What are the most difficult parts to explain?
SD: The handoff of digital to TV seems to be the most mysterious to folks, perhaps because most use of most TV graphics systems has been direct input of content as opposed to outside, digital sources of data or content. But the conversations lead to unique opportunities. For example, for NBC’s The Voice, Ross Video built a unique Xpressions module to smoothly integrate with our live data. It worked out well in the control room and on screen.

The second most difficult part to explain is exactly how our platform filters through thousands of tweets per minute to help producers find (or we can moderate) the best tweets to show, and how to avoid anything that shouldn’t go on TV (standards and practices). In this graphic it’s only represented as a box. Better to explain these questions with a demo of our platform!

LR: What are the easiest parts to explain?
SD: Depends on who you’re talking to! To the digital team, they get how an API would output the data in a flexible way. To the graphics team, they understand once they get the data how to put it on screen. Now we just need everyone to understand the whole process, as today (and more in the future) it’s all connected.

Lost Remote: Anything else?
SD: Certainly this isn’t all technology. There’s a level of curation strategy, design, moderation and live support necessary to make this happen. We’ve been the in-studio support team for many live broadcasts now, and we are privileged to work along side digital and TV graphics team to pull this off. Once a production team experiences this flow first hand, we’ve found it becomes a new core competency for the broadcaster and then they can get more creative on the execution. Like most things new, with experience comes wisdom!

Facebook and USA Today team up for Superbowl ads

The Superbowl is already in the air and it seems like social data is going to be a big determinant in which commercials are the best. USA Today and Facebook announced a partnership to power the newspaper’s 24th Annual Ad-Meter.

For the first time ever, consumers everywhere will have a voice in deciding the winner of the Ad Meter and will be able to see how people ranked the ads and share their favorites with friends.

“The creation of the USA TODAY – Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter is going to give millions of people the ability to not only interact with the various Super Bowl commercials, but to rate the ads and share with their friends on Facebook. Making the Ad Meter social brings it to an entirely new level and we’re proud to be a part of it,” said Mike Hoefflinger, director of global business marketing at Facebook in the press release.

The interesting part about this announcement is that Facebook seems to me ramping up on their partnerships with traditional media companies. Over the past year Twitter has been at the forefront of leveraging partnerships with traditional TV companies and showing them how valuable the partnerships can be for both sides. Twitter Media even has detailed guides on their site for producers, newsrooms and best practices. Facebook on the other hand clearly states in their “Brand Permissions Section” that “any use of our brand assets in broadcast, such as in television of film production, must be approved by us in writing prior to use.”

Another indicator that Facebook might be going after more media partnerships is that they’re looking to hire a “Strategic Partner Development, Media” representative in New York. The person will “build and enhance successful partnerships, influence internal and external partners, and implement strategic partnership plans with our key partners in the media industry.” And of course, then there’s the recent massive announcement involving Hulu and Netflix.